World

The dangers of the Iran-Saudi Arabia stand-off

Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burn an effigy of King Salman of Saudi Arabia as they hold posters of Sheik Nimr al-Nimr and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr during a demonstration in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 4, 2016.

Image: AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press

By Mohamad Bazzi2016-01-05 17:41:32 UTC

The Middle East hurtled toward a regional conflict after Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric earlier in the week, sparking protests throughout the region. In short order, demonstrators stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and Saudi Arabia responded by cutting diplomatic relations with Iran, a move followed by several Saudi allies.

Caught off-guard on a holiday weekend, U.S. and Western officials are now appealing for calm, worried that the hostile rhetoric could escalate to something beyond a diplomatic dustup.

"We’re urging all sides to show some restraint and to not further inflame tensions that are on quite vivid display in the region," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday.

The question almost too scary to contemplate is whether this could escalate into a full-scale military confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran?

An all-out war between the two countries is probably unlikely — in part because the two regional rivals have long been fighting though not on their own territory.

While the conflict is partly rooted in the historical Sunni-Shiite split within Islam, it’s mainly a struggle for political dominance of the Middle East between Shiite-led Iran and Sunni-led Saudi Arabia.

For more than a decade, Iran and Saudi Arabia have engaged in proxy battles — with the two rivals backing competing factions in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Bahrain — in a sectarian conflict that has shaped the Middle East since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

A Kashmiri Shiite Muslim and a policeman argue during a protest against Saudi Arabia in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016.

Image: AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan/Associated Press

These proxy wars have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, especially in Syria, where more than 250,000 have been killed since the March 2011 uprising against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian war has also created the most severe refugee crisis since World War II, with nearly 4.4 million people having left their homes in Syria.

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia last year launched a war against Houthi rebels who are supported by Iran. As the war has dragged on, air strikes by Saudi Arabia and its allies caused most of the estimated 2,600 civilian deaths.

The wars in Syria and Yemen can’t be stopped without an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. With the two rivals now refusing to speak to one another, these wars are likely to get worse. And, by default, the bloodshed and widening chaos will strengthen the Islamic State, which has its self-declared capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, as well as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is taking advantage of the power vacuum in Yemen.

A Kashmiri Shiite Muslim protester amid tear gas fired by Indian police as Shiite protesters rallied against Saudi Arabia after the execution of a Shiite cleric, Jan. 3, 2015

Image: Adil Hussain/Demotix/Corbis/Associated Press

Since the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, where Saudi Arabia backed Sunni insurgents while Iran supported the Shiite government and Shiite militias, Sunni Arab leaders in the region have been concerned about Iran's ambitions. And the conflict only intensified after the Arab uprisings of 2011, when Saudi Arabia tried to choke off revolutionary momentum in the region.

And while the Syrian uprising did not start out as a religious battle, it quickly took on sectarian overtones and descended into civil war as Iran provided funds, arms and military advisers to prop up Assad’s regime and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey began sending money and weapons to the rebels.

A Lebanese protester holds a picture of the Saudi Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr during a protest to denounce his execution, in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016.

Image: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar/Associated Press

The Syrian conflict is now a central arena in the wider struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both powers increasingly see their rivalry as a winner-take-all conflict and Saudi Arabia has rushed to shore up its allies in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and wherever else it fears Iran’s influence.

In July, the United States and five other world powers reached an agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear program in exchange for lifting international sanctions. Under the deal, Iran will be allowed to re-enter the global financial system, increase its oil exports and access more than $100 billion in frozen assets.

It was the final match in the powder barrel: Saudi leaders got anxious that Washington would become closer to Iran, at their expense, fearing that Iran would gain an edge in their ongoing regional rivalry. By executing the Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr who had criticized the kingdom’s treatment of its Shiite minority, Saudi Arabia was sending a signal.

As long as Iran and Saudi Arabia see their rivalry as a zero-sum game — where one can only gain at the expense of the other — the Middle East will be plagued with sectarian conflict.

Mohamad Bazzi, a journalism professor at New York University, is writing a book on the proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He is the former Middle East bureau chief of Newsday. Follow him @BazziNYU

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